Curtailment season under way
As the temperature rises, the energy curtailment
season begins. Between now and Sept. 30, faculty
and staff may be asked to reduce electrical usage
during peak-demand times. As part of the University’s
contract with MidAmerican Energy, the University
agrees to curtail electrical usage up to 16 times,
up to six hours per occurrence.
The University will notify all faculty, staff, and
students via e-mail, usually at least two hours in
advance of a curtailment. (Oakdale Campus is not
served by MidAmerican Energy and therefore is not
included in the curtailment.)
If these contractual obligations are met, the University
will save hundreds of thousands of dollars in reduced
electrical costs. For more information on energy
curtailments and how faculty and staff can help,
visit www.uiowa.edu/~fusfsg/utils/curtailment.
For additional information, contact the Work Control
Center at fsg-wcc@uiowa.edu or (33)5-5071.
Main Library entrance now closed
The south entrance of the Main Library will be closed
this summer to rebuild the crumbling 30-year-old
plaza that is only partly accessible to disabled
persons. The construction should be complete by mid-August.
The north entrance will remain open during the Main
Library’s regular summer hours.
Fulbright competition now open
UI students and staff now have the opportunity to
join the ranks of actor John Lithgow, Nobel Prize
winner Joseph Stiglitz, and 96,000 other Americans
by receiving grants through the Fulbright U.S. Student
Program.
The program, offered by the Institute of International
Education, the U.S. Department of State, and the
J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, gives
current UI graduate students, recent graduates, postgraduate
candidates, and developing professionals and artists
opportunities for professional and personal enrichment
abroad.
For more information or the application form, contact
Roberta M. Marvin, International Programs Grants
and Development Office, at (33)5-2823. Applications
must be submitted to Marvin, 256 International Center,
by Sept. 21.
More information is online at www.iie.org/fulbright.
UI to host first Web Camp
Campus webmasters and others involved in creating
and maintaining UI web pages are invited to participate
in the first-ever UI Web Camp, to be held throughout
the month of June.
The first event will be a daylong web forum on June
7, with a keynote address by nationally known web
guru Eric Meyer, who also will provide a two-hour
workshop on cascading style sheets. Breakout sessions
will cover a number of topics, from good design to
content management to using HawkID to authenticate
visitors to a site.
Additional events will include hands-on training
sessions in web development, web studios, and seminars.
Participants can pick and choose events, most of
which are free. All UI staff and faculty are welcome.
For more information on Web Camp, including how
to register, see http://cio.uiowa.edu/events/webcamp2004.
Web Camp is sponsored by the UI Chief Information
Officer and the Information Technology Professional
Development Team.
Press publishes mushroom guide
In addition to crocuses and robins, springtime in
Iowa brings out another harbinger of warmer weather:
mushrooms.
Mushrooms in Your Pocket, a new guide published
in May by the University of Iowa Press, illustrates
43 species of Iowa mushrooms using color photos that
show the fungi in the wild—from the yellow
morel to the destroying angel to the pear-shaped
puffball.
Authors Donald Huffman and Lois Tiffany give common
and scientific names, descriptions of caps and stalks,
descriptions of where the mushrooms can be found
(on the ground in woods, in clusters on fallen logs,
etc.), the season when they are most likely to be
seen, and information on edibility.
For more information, visit the UI Press web site
at www.uiowa.edu/uiowapress.
UI joins climate exchange
In an attempt to help reduce the amount of greenhouse
gases being generated in the Midwest, the University
recently joined the Chicago Climate Exchange, the
world’s first multinational and multisector
marketplace for reducing and trading greenhouse gas
emissions.
Under the terms of its membership, the University
is required to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions
by 4 percent by the year 2006, as compared to the
baseline years of 1998-2001.
Jerry Schnoor, the Allen S. Henry Chair of Engineering
in the College of Engineering and codirector of the
UI Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research,
says that the University’s action will reduce
greenhouse gas emissions, utilize a renewable waste
product as a resource for Iowa, and save the University
hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in coal
costs.
The way the exchange is designed, excess savings
of carbon dioxide emissions would translate into
carbon dioxide emissions credits, perhaps valuable
to other exchange members who fail to meet their
emission reduction goals. Such credits could be worth
thousands of dollars to the University.
Correction
A news story about an umbilical cord blood bank
printed in the May 7 issue of fyi contained two inaccuracies.
The name of the bank is the UI Hematopoietic Stem
Cell Bank. The Carver Charitable Trust is providing
a Center of Excellence grant to help support the
project. fyi regrets the errors.
Faculty development info online
All faculty development information and application
materials for the upcoming year are now available
through the Office of the Provost web site at www.uiowa.edu/~provost/facdev.
Because this information is updated annually, it
is important to obtain materials from the web. Note
that in addition to the paper submission process,
there also is a required procedure for online submission
of the cover and abstract page for all faculty development
awards, both applications and reports.
Input sought on cost savings
In light of recent budget cuts announced by UI President
David Skorton, the University is encouraging faculty
and staff to submit suggestions on ways to save money
via the UI SMART (Save Money and Reward Thriftiness)
Suggestion Program.
If your original idea is implemented, you could
win $100. For more information about the program
or to submit your suggestion online, go to www.uiowa.edu/hr/worklife/SMART.
For additional information, contact Pat Kenner,
CQI–Organizational Effectiveness, 121-50 USB,
pat-kenner@uiowa.edu, (33)5-0505.
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